San Marvelous

It was a morning devoted to walking around downtown San Marcos (TX).

Finding a parking spot only two blocks from downtown was fortunate; finding one next to the Victorian Gothic-styled First United Methodist Church was a blessing.

The church was completed in 1893, and in 1939, 20 stained glass windows were added as memorials to the early builders. The 1872 bell in the four-story bell tower is the oldest historic artefact in San Marcos.

At the center of town is the Hays County Courthouse. I found it interesting that the architect was C.H. Page and Brother (as noted on the corner-stone; later changed to Page Brothers). Their design was used for a nearly identical courthouse in Ft. Bend County (Richmond).

This entrance to the courthouse annex (left) faces the courthouse.










The next three photos show the street north of the courthouse (left), the northwest corner (below), and the street on the west side (two photos below).

San Marcos, a city of 50,000, is located on the I-35 corridor between Austin and San Antonio and is the home of Texas State University (a campus bus is shown on the right).

Texas State has an enrollment of over 32,000 students, and is the sixth-largest university in Texas. Curious about a university of that size that was unknown to me, I did some reading and found out that it is the only university in the state to have a former President of the United States (Lyndon B. Johnson) as an alumnus, and in 2010, two students won grants under the Fulbright Program.

Texas State had been known as Southwest Texas State University until 2003. And speaking of names, the campus serves as the location of the fictional school TMU (Texas Methodist University) in the NBC TV series Friday Night Lights.

The next two photos show close-up views of some of the architec-tural details of some of the businesses along the street west of the courthouse.













In contrast to the more traditional businesses around the courthouse, we came across this threesome a couple of blocks away (l. to r.): the Hemp Store, Al's Freewheelin' Cycles, and Bada Bling.

And while walking through an alley in the downtown area, I came across this arrangement of pipes and connectors that had been "touched up" for some reason. I could not resist a few shots of this hardware.









Then it was back to the stretch of the San Marcos River that ran through Pecan Park Riverside RV, which looked inviting even in the sub-freezing temperatures of early February in "San Marvelous" (nickname for San Marcos).